Right, which is why I'm more in favor of building nuclear to satisfy load all day around. Peak demand is when intermittent sources are producing the least. We need some form of decarbonized non-intermittent power to accommodate that. Hydro is great where we can build it. For everywhere else, there's nuclear power. And since nuclear power is just as cheap to operate around the clock, the latter regions can just skip the solar and wind.
I agree with you: if we use renewables we'll be using gas for 40-50% of our electricity needs until some scalable system of storage is found (batteries lack the scale, hydro lacks the geographic independency). But that's not an option if we want to decarbonize. The goal isn't to just have CO2 output. The goal is to eliminate CO2 output.
IMO, gas is going to be around for quite a while as a peaker for renewables - and the more renewables come online, the less necessary it is as a peaker, but it will still be needed.